George Bancroft

The best government rests on the people, and not on the few, on persons and not on property, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority.

The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are all blindly adopted, the second willfully preferred.

The public is wiser than the wisest critic.

If reason is a universal faculty, the decision of the common mind is the nearest criterion of truth.

In nine times out of ten, the slanderous tongue belongs to a disappointed person.

Truth is not exciting enough to those who depend on the characters and lives of their neighbors for all their amusement.

Westward the star of empire takes its way.

Beauty is but the sensible image of the Infinite. Like truth and justice it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law it is a companion of the soul.

The charities of life are scattered everywhere, enameling the vales of human beings as the flowers paint the meadows. They are not the fruit of study, nor the privilege of refinement, but a natural instinct.

Conscience is the mirror of our souls, which represents the errors of our lives in their full shape.